Quote

How soon the labor of men would make a paradise of the earth were it not for misgovernment and a diversion of his energies to selfish interests.

Thomas Jefferson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
Archaeologist
Architect
Cryptographer
Diplomat
Farmer
Inventor
Jurist
Lawyer
Philosopher
Politician
Slaveholder
President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Energy
Diversion
Earth
Energies
Make
Paradise
Would
Selfish
Men
Interests
Labor
Soon
Interest
Misgovernment

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Image
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. In order to flourish, the tree of Liberty needs the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Students of reading, writing and common arithmetick . . . Graecian [Greek], Roman, English and American history . . . should be rendered . . . worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Slavery is an abomination and must be loudly proclaimed as such, but I own that I nor any other man has any immediate solution to the problem.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
He alone who walks strict and upright, and who, in matters of opinion, will be contented that others should be as free as himself and acquiesce when his opinion is freely overruled, will attain his object in the end.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The happiest hours of my life have been spent in the flow of affection among friends.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise, in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
Thomas Jefferson
Image
There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I hope the necessity will at length be seen of establishing institutions, here as in Europe, where every branch of science, useful at this day, may be taught in it's highest degrees.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Many are the exercises of power reserved to the States wherein a uniformity of proceeding would be advantageous to all. Such are quarantines, health laws, regulations of the press, banking institutions, training militia, etc., etc.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Can one generation bind another, and all others, in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter endowed with will...Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
With respect to our State and federal governments, I do not think their relations correctly understood by foreigners. They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. But this is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole.
Thomas Jefferson